Trinity
by Wilusa
Summary: One fan's series ending idea. This fic makes use of the new canon that's been established since the show went off the air...and yes, it takes Ben and Sofie into the desert. One of the many things I've invented is a name for the child in the story.
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: Carnivale and its canon characters are the property of HBO and the show's producers; no copyright infringement is intended.

_**Introductory Note:**__ When Carnivale - planned to run for six seasons - was canceled after two, series creator Daniel Knauf was offered an opportunity to wrap up his story in a three-hour HBO Film. He declined, saying that he had too much untold story to be condensed into a film of that length, and that Carnivale would be better left unfinished than finished badly._

_I still hope Mr. Knauf will be able to tell the rest of his story, in one medium or another. And I agree that where professional, authorized continuations are concerned, Carnivale is better left unfinished than finished badly. But as a fan who may never learn the real intended ending, I felt compelled to write one that will, in a pinch, provide me with needed closure. I wrote it for myself; if any other fans see merit in it, that's gravy._

x

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Ben Hawkins dropped to his knees beside the dead body of Justin Crowe.

And gave a despairing moan.

A boy's voice said, "It was Mom who killed him."

Ben hadn't seen or heard the youngster come into the room. He scrambled to his feet, saying, "I'm sorry, Adam."

Then he wondered, _Was that a mistake? I'm a stranger to him. How can I explain knowing his name?_

But the nine-year-old apparently hadn't noticed - either that, or he took for granted that everyone knew the name of the only child of a famous evangelist. White-faced but eerily composed, he asked, "Are you the police? Do you want me to tell you what happened?"

Ben felt his knees go weak. "Did you actually see it?" _Sofie, how could you?_

Ben had rushed to the Crowe home in response to an urgent mental summons from Justin, who'd been his ally for months. He was devastated by Justin's death, but not truly surprised, by that or by the identity of the killer. What did surprise and stun him was that Sofie had committed murder in front of her son. _No_, he corrected himself bitterly, _in front of __**our**__ son._

He'd known for years that he was the father of Sofie's child. But he'd never gotten a close look at him. Now he was shaken by the sight of the boy's snub nose, blue-gray eyes, and mop of medium-brown hair.

Ben rarely thought about his own looks. But now he was grateful that his hair was iron-gray, his face ravaged by a decade of physical pain and mental anguish. If he looked the way he should have looked at twenty-nine, Adam would have had to be blind to not see the resemblance. _And Justin was a good father to him, at least as good as I could have been. The last thing he needs now is to start having doubts about who he is._

Ben had feared that his not sensing Adam as his Prince meant that his son was a Dark Avatar. But after he and Justin had put their differences behind them, Justin told him that neither he nor Sofie had sensed Adam as a Prince, either; nor had the child displayed any preternatural abilities. The two men concluded that Adam was a normal little boy, not an Avatar at all.

Knowing that had gladdened Ben's heart.

_It makes sense_, he reflected now. _If Sofie is the Omega - the only Avatar destined to be born into our __**last**__ generation - it stands to reason that no child of hers can be one. My firstborn son would have been an Avatar if any other woman had been his mother. But destiny brought Sofie and me together so that couldn't happen._

" 'Course I saw it," the boy was saying.

Ben suppressed a shudder. "Okay. I'm not the police." He didn't want to be dishonest with Adam, not about that. Besides, if the police had been called, a real homicide detective might show up at any moment. "But I was a friend of your father's, even though you and I never met. My name is Ben Hawkins. Do tell me what happened, please!"

"All right. I s'pose you're wondering about the door?"

"Door?" In his haste, Ben had barely noticed that the front door was standing open. Now he glanced toward the doorway - and did a double take.

The door wasn't standing open. The house simply had no door.

Frowning, Adam explained, "Mom wanted to go somewhere, and he didn't want her to. They were yelling at each other. She opened the door. Then the knob sort of flew out of her hand, and the door slammed shut, all on its own. She yelled, 'Do you think a trick like that can still stop _me?_' She just looked at the door, waved at it, and it vanished.

"Then he grabbed her and held on to her, trying to stop her that way. He never hit her. But she kept punching him, again and again, in the chest. He went down, and when he was on the floor, she started _kicking_ him in the chest, and kept it up till he stopped moving.

"And then she just left."

Ben winced. He understood all too well what Sofie had done. She'd deliberately dislodged the blade of his dagger, which had been imbedded in Justin's chest for ten long years. Driven it into his heart, and killed him a second time.

He supposed Justin could also be restored to life a second time. But he instantly rejected that idea. _As Sofie knew I would_, he thought ruefully_._ He could only have done it by killing someone else. And he had by now developed such reverence for life that he couldn't have brought himself to kill even Adolf Hitler (if the man had still been alive, which he wasn't).

Killing Justin's killer - as he had, long ago, killed Ruthie's - might have been morally acceptable. But that was out of the question, and not solely because of his feelings for Sofie. Ben didn't know whether the Omega would in any case have been stronger than any other individual Avatar. But he'd known for years that she was stronger than either himself or Justin, if only because of the damage they'd inflicted on each other in their battle in the cornfield. They could only have hoped to overpower her - to stop her from doing anything she wanted - by joining forces.

_Why didn't you let her go, Justin? Wait for me to get here, so we could go after her together?_

But he knew why. Justin had hoped to delay her, if not until Ben arrived, at least long enough that she'd have less of a head start.

And he, like Ben, hadn't dreamed she'd commit murder in front of Adam.

x

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It suddenly occurred to Ben that the boy might be alone in the house. He knew where Sofie was going, knew he had to follow her - hopeless though his mission might be. But he couldn't leave the child unattended, with a dead body. "Are you alone here, Adam?"

"No. The bodyguards and the maid and cook ran off, but -"

"Adam? Who are you talking to?" Iris Crowe emerged from an inner room; she gave a faint gasp on recognizing Ben. "Oh - Mr. Hawkins." She put a protective arm around Adam, holding him tight.

"Miss Crowe." They'd met a few times over the years; Ben knew Iris was unnerved by how changed he was from the youth she'd caught with a hatchet in her brother's bedroom. Changed in more than looks: thanks to Belyakov's boon and his own voracious reading, he was now at least as knowledgeable and well-spoken as the typical college graduate.

"Believe me," he said cautiously, "I'm sorry about what happened here."

"Y-yes. I know you are." Like the boy, she was pale and drawn, but dry-eyed and rigidly erect. _Both still in shock_, Ben realized.

"I'm glad you're here for Adam," he told her. To reassure her, let her know he didn't mean to snatch his son. "Have you called the police?" He hoped she hadn't.

"No. I was about to call a doctor we've known for years. I can trust him to issue a death certificate saying Justin died of a heart attack."

"Hmm." Iris went up a notch in his estimation. "That's a good idea."

_Unless..._

He still felt uneasy about leaving.

_Does what I'm thinking of always happen, or only sometimes?_

_And if it's going to happen here, which way -?_

Suddenly, he was aware of a ringing in his ears. He felt a wave of vertigo. The room began rocking like a ship at sea...and as it rocked it grew ever brighter, all its surfaces shimmering with an unearthly, pearly radiance.

Iris, who'd fallen to her knees, let out a shriek.

"It's all right!" Ben yelled. _Yes, I __**know**__ it's all right._ "I've seen this before!" Somehow steadying himself, he took Adam by the shoulders and turned him to face Justin's corpse. "Don't be afraid," he told the boy. "Watch what's going to happen."

The rocking had ceased. Now, as the three of them watched, the dead body lifted off the floor, rose to the ceiling...and seemingly passed _through_ it. Out of sight.

The light faded, and the room returned to normal - except for the corpse being gone.

Iris moaned.

"His body ascended," Ben explained quietly, "to symbolize the fate of his soul. Like I said, I've seen it before. Just once, after the death of a very saintly man."

Adam, gazing at the spot where the body had lain, said, "_He_ was a saint." His voice shook only slightly.

Iris was still kneeling. To Ben's surprise, she murmured, "Each of us carries within us the seeds of our own salvation...and our own damnation." Then she looked up at him and explained, "I heard Justin say that. Long ago."

Even from a distance, Ben saw the torment in her eyes.

_She didn't expect Justin to be saved_, he realized,_ after some of the things he'd done. And she feels doubly bereft because she wrote __**herself**__ off as damned a decade ago._

He let go of Adam, who seemed to be coping well, and walked over to Iris. Bent to put a hand on her shoulder - _the first time I've ever touched her - _and gazed deep into those tortured eyes. _How much can I say, without its being too much in front of Adam?_

He decided on a gentle, "Your brother was right, Miss Crowe. But the emphasis should be on salvation. While there's breath in our bodies, it's not too late to repent and be saved."

Voice quavering, she asked, "Is salvation possible even for...for Hitler?"

He knew she wasn't really thinking of Hitler.

"Yes," he said firmly. "I'm not saying he _was_ saved. I don't know. But it was possible, till the very end."

Privately, he suspected that Hitler's culpability had been reduced by mental illness. _He may have less to atone for, in God's eyes, than the sane men who appeased him._

Mental illness could be a mitigating factor in Iris's case as well. But he knew better than to tell her that.

He didn't think he'd said anything very inspiring. He would have liked to tell her he knew about the murders she'd committed, and assure her that God would forgive those specific sins. But he couldn't do it within earshot of the boy.

Iris, however, seemed genuinely moved by what he _had_ said. Tears welled up in her eyes; but the emotions he read there now were relief and hope. As he helped her to her feet, she whispered a heartfelt, "Thank you."

Ben wasn't sure what he'd done. (He'd done it before, and was never quite sure.) But despite knowing Iris wasn't ideally stable, he felt better about leaving his son in her care.

x

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"I'll have to be going soon," he told her. "And you'll need to make some hard decisions.

"If you're sure you can trust that doctor, you could have him make up the death certificate without seeing a body. Then you could bury a closed, weighted coffin.

"Or if the people who saw the body can be persuaded not to tell anyone else, you could say Justin has simply disappeared. Claim his marriage broke up, Sofie left, and he was so depressed that he went missing. I remember hearing he did that once before, years ago. This time, he could wander off and not come back."

Iris shook her head. "No!" Out of the corner of his eye, Ben saw that Adam was shaking his head, too.

"No one would believe Justin would do that now," Iris said quietly. There was a hint of pride in her voice. "Everyone who knows him knows he'd never abandon Adam."

Ben felt a lump in his throat. _And he told me he knew from the start that Adam was my son, not his._

He swallowed hard. "So you'll have to go with the closed coffin."

Iris nodded. "It won't be a problem. The doctor will do whatever I ask."

"The bodyguards, maid, cook -"

"No problems there either," she assured him. "They heard angry voices, then saw Justin dead on the floor and the front door missing. But they didn't see anything Sofie did.

"As for the door, it turned up in the cornfield! So she just used her powers to _move_ it. That can be explained as a prank by vandals."

Ben sighed. "All right. I hate to leave you like this, but I need to catch up with Sofie. I don't know whether she'll ever come back here" - he saw Iris stiffen at the prospect - "but I can't wait."

Adam said diffidently, "Mr. Hawkins?"

Ben wanted to say, "Call me Ben."

He wanted even more to hug the boy. To tousle his hair, just once...

_No. It would be wrong to make him think I want to be his friend, because he'll almost certainly never see me again._

So all he said was, "Yes, Adam?"

With downcast eyes, Adam said, "I don't think Mom means to come back, to take over the ministry or anything.

"I forgot to tell you the last thing she did before she left. She chucked something in the wastebasket.

"I think it was her wedding ring."

x

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x

Ben knew a moment's temptation.

_I __**could**__ stay with Adam and Iris, and let Sofie do her worst. I probably can't stop her, anyway._

_She's signaled that she's burning her bridges behind her. And Adam is an innocent victim in all of this. Justin wouldn't have abandoned him, but his own mother has._

_Iris can fill in for his mother. But a boy needs a father figure, too. I know how hard it is to grow up without one. I could become that father figure for Adam, even if I never tell him the truth..._

Then he set his jaw. _**No. **__Those are exactly the thoughts Sofie hopes I'll have._

He sensed that there would be other innocent victims. Victims whose lives would be at stake.

_I may not be able to save them._

_But God help me, I still have a duty to __**try**__._

He turned on his heel, said a brusque goodbye, and left before he could change his mind.


	2. Chapter 2

Ben's car was weaving all over the dusty road.

_Good thing there's no traffic_, he thought with black humor. _If I pass out and wreck it, I won't kill anyone but myself._

Passing out seemed like a very real possibility.

He'd guessed from the amount of time Sofie had allowed herself, and from her car not having been left in any obvious place, that she planned to drive all the way from central California to New Mexico. He'd decided to do the same, in the vain hope of overtaking her short of her destination. But he didn't have Sofie's stamina. He'd been exhausted from the drive even before he had to begin using his Avataric powers. Now he'd been straining for hours to make himself and his vehicle invisible to the U.S. military, but visible to Sofie. He'd never before attempted to sustain the illusion of invisibility longer than fifteen minutes.

Ben had lived with near-constant pain for a decade, ever since Justin had wounded him with an anointed blade. Wounds like that would never completely heal. When the U.S. entered World War II he'd been supporting himself as a carny freak, displaying his blue blood and open wounds as anomalies for which he had no explanation. His draft board had declared him 4F. Today, the cramps in his belly and the steady ache in his left arm were a maddening distraction. And he suspected that the jostling on the bad road had started the abdominal wound bleeding again, sapping his strength.

_I'm so close to the site that Sofie could be nearby, not letting me see her. She may simply decide to squash me like a bug._

_No, don't think that way! She knows I'm no threat to her. I can't stop her from going through with her plan, not by force. I have to believe she'll want to talk to me, if only to gloat._

Even as he struggled to retain control of the car, he began having flashbacks. In his mind's eye, he saw again the horrific vision Belyakov had shown him...of events in this desert, on this day.

_A klaxon, then a blast that was beyond belief._ He shuddered._ A successful test of the most deadly weapon ever known to man._

_The Preacher - Justin - chiding me for having "fled the wrath to come." He meant what he was saying. But the line's being a quote from John the Baptist was also a hint that he was the precursor of someone else - the Antichrist, the Omega._

_That was a vision of what would happen if I did what I intended at the time, submitted myself to carny justice for having killed Lodz. I meant to pick the number six, so I'd surely die._

_Is it possible that in that reality, the Justin of July 1945 was no more evil than he was in __**this**__ July 1945?_

_He would still have been a Dark Avatar. So it's understandable that his eyes would have gone, briefly, demon-black in his fury at seeing __**me - **__the potential ally who'd copped out by choosing death._

_A Justin who hadn't been weakened by what I did to him in the cornfield..._

_Might he have accomplished what I hope to accomplish today, by force rather than persuasion? And died in doing it?_

If so, it was cold comfort. Force might have worked for an unimpaired Justin, but it couldn't work for Ben.

He had only a general idea of what Sofie planned. But that was enough to curdle his blood.

All the Avatars had used their powers to learn about the Trinity project in New Mexico. The superweapon in development, the atomic bomb. None of them had welcomed it. Ben had been appalled by its potential to claim millions of lives. Sofie, and initially Justin, had been furious because ordinary humans were making such a breakthrough without the aid of Dark Avatars. In essence, they were being put out of a job.

The scientific principles behind the bomb were sound. Ben was sure no Avatar could prevent the device's working.

Sofie had something else in mind.

x

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Suddenly, her car appeared - parked at an angle to block the road, directly in front of him. Ben slammed on the brake just in time to avoid hitting it.

Sofie was watching from the roadside, her expression unreadable. In spite of their decade-long enmity, in spite of everything, his heart skipped a beat when he saw her. It always did.

He struggled out of the car - refusing to grimace with pain - and did his not-so-successful best to stand erect as they sized each other up.

The mother of his child was, like him, dressed in faded jeans and a worn, shapeless shirt. Her dark hair had more gray streaks and her face more lines than when he'd last seen her; plotting to destroy humanity was evidently just as stressful as trying to save it.

Either of them could in theory have used their power of illusion to show the other a more attractive visage. But they were already expending an enormous amount of energy to hide themselves and their cars from the military.

Sofie looked hot and tired.

After a beat, she saved Ben the trouble of thinking of an opening line by saying curtly, "Unless you've switched sides, you're a fool."

He took a deep breath. "I haven't switched sides. And maybe I am a fool. But you're not - and I know you aren't suicidal, either. So what are you doing in the middle of the intended blast zone?"

"You just said it - the _intended_ blast zone." Her lip curled in a sneer. "I have to be here to affect the explosion. But as long as I'm here, I have the power to _move_ it. To make the blast take place somewhere else, not harming a hair on my head." As an afterthought, she added, "Or yours, for that matter."

Ben suppressed a moan. _Just as I feared._ He asked carefully, "So are you planning to make it...recoil? Kill the scientists and military carrying out the test?"

"I thought of that," she acknowledged. "But I decided I'd be wasting the potential of a perfectly good bomb."

This time, he couldn't suppress his gasp. "Tell me you're toying with me."

"Afraid not."

"Sofie - do you mean to have this test wipe out a population center? Some innocent American community?"

She shrugged. "There's nothing innocent about any of them."

"For God's sake," he whispered, "tell me. Where do you intend it to strike?" _Alamogordo? Las Cruces? Is she capable of killing that many people?_

She folded her arms, looked straight at him, and said, "San Diego."

Ben was speechless for a full minute.

When he found his voice, he said, "How - how _can_ you -?"

Sofie took the question literally. "I'm sure that if I have a clear picture of San Diego in my mind - and I do - my powers will enable me to move the blast that far. It's really no different than moving Justin's stupid door into the cornfield."

"No different than moving a _door?_" By now hot tears stung his eyes. But he fought for calm, and made himself ask, "Why San Diego?"

Sofie gave a grim smile. "Since I couldn't stop humans from developing the bomb, I mean to hurry them along toward destroying themselves with it.

"The U.S. Government won't understand what's happened, but there's no way they'll admit a test of theirs went so horribly wrong. If I hit a coastal city, they'll blame it on Japan."

"Japan? But -"

"Of course," she continued implacably, "by the time the U.S. has overrun and devastated Japan, so many experts will have discovered Japan couldn't have done it that they'll need to come up with another story. At that point they'll claim it was the Soviet Union.

"When the dust has settled after this war, the Soviet Union is sure to be America's greatest rival. And it's an Asian power as well as a European - as near our west coast as our east."

"But why would the Russians bomb San Diego?" Ben demanded. "Especially now, when we're still allies?"

Sofie was unfazed. "It doesn't have to make sense. After all, the U.S. Government will know it wasn't them. They'll just need a scapegoat. But it's sure to set the two countries on a collision course, and one of them will really bomb the other as soon as it has the capability."

"All right, all right." He had to admit the plan itself did make a grisly kind of sense. "But Sofie, why do you want to send the world hell-bent toward destruction when our son has to grow up in it?"

She'd obviously thought of that. "He doesn't have to grow up in the United States!

"Humanity will kill itself off, Ben, but not so quickly that Adam won't have a normal life span. I'm moving on, but you can step in and raise him. By the time he's an adult, he'll see the handwriting on the wall, and he won't bring children of his own into the world."

Ben couldn't imagine a bleaker future.

But ascertaining Sofie's plan had never been more than the first step of _his_.

x

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"Sofe," he said gently. And yes, he saw a flicker in her eyes, a hint of reaction to the old, intimate nickname from her carny days. "Why do you want to kill so many people? Why do you want to destroy humanity? I'd like you to give me reasons."

_And do it fast - time is running out._ He'd go crazy if he kept looking at his watch, but he knew they had little more than an hour before the planned detonation.

She frowned. "Why? They've rejected the guidance of Avatars -"

He shook his head. "Forget Avatars. You're a _person_, Sofe, a person with free will. You can go against your Avataric nature if you want to.

"I'm not presuming to say you should. But you should decide based on your own feelings and beliefs. And I'd like to know why _you_, Sofie Bojakshiya, have so much hatred and bitterness in your heart."

He hoped she'd respond to the challenge.

He'd sometimes been able to dispel hatred and bitterness simply by looking into a troubled person's eyes - and beyond them, into the soul. But he knew the Omega would be a tougher nut to crack. He'd have to reason with her, if he could get through to her at all.

At least she was paying attention. She said, "I notice you called me Sofie Bojakshiya. Not Crowe."

"Yes. I know you killed Justin - and left your wedding ring behind." Then he hastened to assure her, "You won't face any legal consequences, if you're concerned about that." He couldn't help remembering that _he_ had once killed Justin, and the man had only come back to life because Sofie revived him. "His death will be blamed on a heart attack."

"In a sense, that's exactly what it was."

Ben nodded, conceding the point. _An __**attack,**__ directed at his heart._

He knew Sofie had always hated Justin. She'd brought him back to life, obtaining the necessary life-force by reaching out with her mind and killing an already injured, unconscious Varlyn Stroud. But she'd only done it because she coveted Justin's power base. She'd made herself indispensable to him, then gotten him to marry her - a marriage in name only - as a way of legitimizing her expected child and keeping the child from Ben. At the time, Justin had been as anxious as she was to deny Ben his child. She'd hoped that she'd be able to take over her husband's movement and dispose of him. But despite his ill health (caused by his own unhealed wound and the blade still in his chest), he was the one with the charisma, and she found that she couldn't supplant him. In the end, he'd denounced fascism and racism, and led his followers back into the mainstream.

Ben was about to mention Sofie's hatred of Justin - understandable, given his rape of her mother - when she suddenly spoke up. "You ask why I'm bitter? Like you said, I'm Sofie _Bojakshiya_. And there's no justice in this world. My people, the Rom, have been persecuted for centuries."

"That's true," Ben said quietly, "they have been persecuted. But you spent years allied with a group that was just as hostile to the Rom as it was to Jews and other minorities. If they'd known your origin, they would have persecuted _you_." For years, Justin himself hadn't known the truth about Sofie.

"That's water over the dam," Ben continued. "What matters now is that if you destroy humanity, your Rom people will perish along with everyone else."

He caught a glimpse of doubt in her eyes. But then her expression hardened. "Come to think of it, the Rom have never done a damn thing for me. Mama had an extended family, but when she was crippled, no one but her sister Anash came near us. And Anash? She took care of Mama till I was five - five! - and then dumped the job on me. I never saw or heard from her again. I can barely remember her."

_Good_, Ben told himself. _We're getting closer to the core of the problem._

He'd been standing since he got out of his car. He was sure he was bleeding - he'd begun to feel lightheaded - and he wanted desperately to sit down on the running board. But he refused to give in to his weakness. _Think of her, not myself._

He asked carefully, "Was anyone ever good to you, Sofe?"

"No!" After a moment's pause, she admitted, "Maybe that's putting it a little too strongly. But -" Then it all came out in a rush. "The fact is, my life was in ruins from the start. Justin raped my mother, and that got me stuck caring for an invalid, and I was never loved or wanted by anyone."

_Bingo._

He said, "I remember you telling me, back on the road to Damascus, that if you ever met your father, you'd kill him."

"Yes. And I finally did." She gave a defiant toss of her head, but he saw she was blinking back tears. _Not for Justin. For the years of feeling unloved and unwanted._

He sensed that he needed to go back to the very beginning, to discuss the rape. He could only pray that he had enough time in which to do it.

"Sofie, this may sound strange, but I hope you'll hear me out.

"I'm not trying to justify what your father did to your mother. Nothing can excuse rape. But if you let yourself understand what happened, you might find it in your heart to forgive him.

"I think you're picturing the fortysomething Tattooed Man, the Usher of Destruction in all his demonic glory, raping Appy out of sheer savagery. It wasn't like that. Justin was still in his teens - a divinity student, of all things. Probably a virgin. He wasn't used to the feelings he was having, didn't know how to cope with them.

"And they weren't the normal feelings of a normal young man. He was a Dark Avatar - and not even a 'normal' Dark Avatar. He was _destined_ to father a female Avatar who'd be the Omega, the 'Last.'

"I've researched his family history. And Appy's. Both families had a remarkable concentration of Avataric blood! I'm convinced that Justin was destined to father a daughter _by Appy_, because that was the only pairing that could produce the female Avatar. I think they both felt a compulsion to mate that went way beyond what couples normally experience. But Appy's psychic powers showed her enough of Justin's future that she was terrified of him.

"I'm not saying he couldn't have restrained himself. But he was driven by what may have been the strongest compulsion a man had ever known. And like I said, he was still in his teens."

He needed to stop to catch his breath. A white-faced Sofie said softly, "When you and I..." Her voice trailed off.

He realized she wasn't going any further, so he nodded and said, "Yes. I think we felt something similar that night in the truck. I was destined to father a son by you to _prevent_ my ever fathering an Avatar. While we were together with Carnivale and there didn't seem to be any rush, we didn't feel anything unusual. But after you'd made up your mind to leave, the compulsion kicked in.

"We both wanted the same thing, so there was never a question of rape. But I've asked myself, what would I have done if you suddenly said 'Stop'? I think I would have stopped, hope I would have stopped. But I can't be sure. And if I had stopped, it wouldn't have been any feather in my cap, because the good decision would be easier for a Light Avatar.

"Suppose _I'd_ decided to stop, and _you_ wanted to continue and knew you had the power to force me to keep going. Are you absolutely sure what you would have done?"

She made him wait almost a minute for the answer. But at last she muttered, "No."

Then she said stubbornly, "But even if it's true that my parents were driven to produce a daughter, it doesn't follow that they knew it, or that anyone ever wanted me."

"No, it doesn't," he admitted. "But consider this. Your mother was a powerful psychic. She must have foreseen exactly what your birth would do to her. She could easily have had an abortion - but she didn't.

"That tells me that by the time she foresaw what would happen, she thought of the fetus in her womb as a person. And she wanted you. She probably already loved you."

He could see that Sofie was shaken. She'd apparently never thought of the foreknowledge and the abortion option. But still, she gave a vehement shake of her head. "Later - she hated me! She tormented me. And she started that fire deliberately, trying to kill me."

Ben shook his own head. "She loved you, and all she ever wanted was to protect you. Because she was so handicapped, she couldn't find better ways to do it.

"Yes, she did try to kill you. But that was a last resort, an attempt to end your life before you could do things that would cause you to lose your _soul_. And she was willing to take her own life along with yours."

He thought she was softening. But then she drew herself fully erect and said harshly, "It doesn't matter. My whole life has been one rejection after another."

Ben had to rest a hand on the hood of his car to steady himself. He looked down - and saw that while his shirt and jeans were too baggy to show stains, blue blood was dripping onto his left shoe.

_One way or another, I only have to keep myself going for another half hour or so. Just don't faint. _

He wasn't sure what Sofie had been referring to, but he hazarded a couple of guesses. "I think your Rom family pulled away because they were afraid. They were all Vectori, but they didn't know it, and your mother was the only one who was 'different.' It had nothing to do with you.

"And after you grew up, something went wrong between you and Jonesy, didn't it? But he risked his life to rescue you, twice! Maybe, being what you are, you didn't really need rescuing either time. But he didn't know that.

"I had the idea you two were in love before the fire. Maybe you never realized he pulled you out of it? After you wandered off" - _unconsciously headed __**here**__, even then? - _"and I found you on the road and brought you back, you and I started becoming close. Just as friends, in the beginning. But maybe Jonesy was hurt because you hadn't said anything to him after the fire, and he thought you were getting together with me, and that was why he turned to Libby -"

"Uh, no." Sofie looked uncomfortable. "I knew he'd saved me, and I thanked him. But the truth is that _before_ the fire, I'd done something mean to him and Libby. I won't go into the details, but neither of them deserved what I did.

"After the fire, I told him I was sorry, and he said he believed me. But he also said he didn't want to have anything more to do with me."

Ben needed a few seconds to absorb that. "Oh. So you'd hurt him, maybe hurt him badly, even before he risked his life for you the first time...

"Other people besides you have feelings, Sofe. Sometimes a person can be so wounded that he's afraid to risk letting the other person hurt him again. But Jonesy still _cared_ about you, cared deeply. Not only did he risk his life for you in the fire, he did it again when he was actually married to Libby." Then he felt he had to ask, "You do know about his trying to save you from Stroud, don't you?"

She hung her head. "Yes. I'm sorry I shot him. I...wasn't quite myself at the time. I'm glad he recovered."

"So can you see it now?" he asked urgently. "People haven't been rejecting you, at least none that I know of."

That was the wrong thing to say. When she looked up, her eyes were blazing. "_You_ rejected me! Have you forgotten you walked out on me after we made love? That was the worst rejection of all!"

Ben was stunned.

_Did she believe that at the time_, he wondered, _or convince herself of it later?_

When he managed to pull himself together, he said earnestly, "I never meant to hurt you! The way I saw it was that _you'd_ deserted _me_.

"Think about it. You knew that during that sudden storm, I had to help Jonesy secure the tents. Not only was he my boss, it was work that had to be done, to protect the carnival. I should have thought of it myself.

"By the time I got through, you were in your trailer, sound asleep. I had really expected you to wait for me in the truck, and I was a little bit hurt that you didn't. But I put that out of my mind. I just looked in the trailer to make sure you were there, safe. I didn't presume to wake you, or crawl into bed with you without an invitation.

"And in the morning, I went on ahead to Damascus to find my father. I looked in on you before I left, but you were still asleep. I remember that I kissed you.

"If you'd just asked Samson, he would have told you I meant to come back. In fact, I thought you'd know that from my having taken the Carnivale truck. There'd never been any question of my staying with my father permanently, settling in Damascus. But if I _had_ intended such a thing, I would have told Samson I was leaving and hitchhiked to town - not stolen a vehicle."

He didn't add that in his later disillusionment, he'd suspected that she had seduced him in hopes of getting him to agree, not just to leave with her, but to steal the truck. If a single carny had absconded with a truck, Samson would have sent pursuers after him or her. But if there were two thieves, capable of spelling each other at the wheel, he probably would have let them go rather than call in the law.

What he said - truthfully - was, "I hoped _you_ wouldn't leave. And I was sure you'd at least try again to persuade me to go with you. I couldn't believe it when Lila told me you were gone."

He knew she'd been listening intently, but he still wasn't sure she could see his side of it. So he went on to explain, "I wasn't just searching for my father on a whim. Do you know who Management was?"

That took her by surprise. "Management? You mean, do I know who the person in the trailer _really_ was? No! I haven't thought of him in years."

"Management was an Avatar," he told her. "He was Justin's father and your grandfather, but he didn't know he had any living descendants.

"He was the Light Prophet before me. I was already aware of some of my responsibilities as an Avatar, and Management was guiding me. He insisted I find my father. So I had a lot on my mind, a lot of pressure on me.

"But I swear I didn't want to hurt you. Or _lose_ you."

Sofie was silent, with eyes downcast, for so long that he wanted to scream.

Instead, he said, "There's...one thing more, Sofe. I didn't want to tell you this, because it'll sound like I'm tooting my own horn, and I hate that. But I have to make you see that I've always cared about you."

She looked up at him now, and he realized her cheeks were already stained with tears. But when he hesitated, she said hoarsely, "Go on."

He had no choice.

"Back in the cornfield all those years ago, when I was badly wounded and Justin thought he'd won, he told me you were dead. I understand now that he'd sent Stroud to kill you, and wrongly assumed he'd done it. But at the time, I had no reason to doubt what he said.

"You know I got the drop on him and killed him. When I was about to do it, I realized I could heal myself - only partially, but better than nothing - by draining his life-force and drawing it into myself. I was sure that if I didn't do that, I wouldn't get out of the cornfield alive. I'd pass out, and either bleed to death or be killed by Justin's henchmen before my friends could reach me.

"But I thought of you, and I couldn't leave you dead and save myself. So I willed to use the life-force to bring you back to life, and didn't draw any of it into myself.

"Since you weren't really dead, I'm sure the life-force never went anywhere. It died with Justin. But I lucked out, because I collapsed with my worst wound pressed against his body, and that pretty much stopped the bleeding. Plus, his henchmen were too scared to come into the cornfield at all, and Samson found me in the morning."

He managed a weak smile. "So I didn't die. But I want you to know that I thought I had a choice, and I tried to give the life-force to you."

He'd been afraid she wouldn't believe him. But as he spoke, her eyes had widened in horror. Now she exclaimed, "So that's what happened!" Her voice shook as she went on to tell him, "After I understood more about Avatars, I wondered why you had to be carried out of that cornfield, still unconscious. I knew you'd been conscious long enough to drive the blade into Justin. And I thought that even if you'd never heard of the concept of draining someone, instinct should have told you what to do. Ben, I'm so sorry!" Fresh tears streamed down her cheeks.

"It wasn't your fault," he told her. "But now I have to explain one more thing.

"After we left New Canaan, I was no better than semiconscious for weeks. By the time I could have ordered a search for you, Jonesy had caught up with us and told Samson what you'd done to him. I didn't understand what was going on with you, but it seemed clear you didn't want our help."

Having said that much, he found himself blurting out more. "I will admit that back in '35, I was so young and inexperienced that I didn't know whether I was in love with you.

"But I was. And I still am. I've never stopped loving you."

Sofie stared at him for a long moment, but he couldn't read her expression because his own eyes were filling with tears. Then she choked out, "I...I think...I've always loved you too." _Her_ tears came in a flood.

Ben tried to go to her. But he was so wobbly that when he stepped away from the car, he almost fell. Sofie had to lunge forward and catch him in her arms. "Ben? Oh my God!"

He somehow steadied himself. But Sofie had been jolted out of her fit of weeping, and he couldn't stop her from pulling his shirt up and seeing the blood-soaked bandage.

He tried to make light of it. "Like they say in the movies, 'Just a flesh wound, ma'am.' "

Sofie wasn't amused. "I know this couldn't have been healed completely. But it would have been _some_ better, wouldn't it, all these years, if you'd taken Justin's life-force?"

"I don't know." He really did.

"Is it always this bad, Ben?"

"The bleeding? No," he assured her, "that's from the bumpy roads and the stress. But I was addicted to painkillers for years, a part of my life I'm not proud of. I weaned myself off them. Lately I've just been killing some plants once in a while, to buy myself a few hours' rest."

Her eyes lit up. "I can help you!" she said eagerly. "I have some powers you don't, and I'm sure I can get rid of the pain for you permanently, without harming humans or animals -"

"Sofie." He couldn't let this go on. He took her firmly by the shoulders, and made her look directly into _his_ eyes. "I didn't come here for a healing. You know what I came for."

She seemed suddenly to shrivel up. Her already pale face went chalk-white, under the endearing freckles he'd somehow forgotten. _How could I have forgotten her freckles?_

At last she said, "Yes. You're right. I don't know what I was thinking of. I don't want to kill people, in San Diego or anywhere else! But..." He felt a tremor run through her. "Ben, you may not understand. I can't make the bomb not go off. All I can do is move it, or let it explode here."

He said steadily, "I've known that all along."

"I can't move the blast to a place I've never seen close up, like Antarctica or the surface of the Moon. There isn't any place I could move it to where I could guarantee no humans would die. And if you're imagining I can move _us _-"

He shook his head. "No. I understand how that power works. An Avatar can move energy or particles, and reassemble the particles, like you did with the door. But no living thing can be taken apart and reassembled without killing it."

Sofie was thinking aloud. "If we make ourselves and our cars visible, the cars will be seen from the air. I can't believe the military won't put the test on hold while they check it out. We may have to let them pick us up, but we can talk our way out of it."

Ben could finally look at his watch. He had to tell her, "I'm sorry, but it's too late for that. I've seen their schedule. They've finished their last checks of the area by now. If we arranged dozens of cars to spell out S.O.S., it wouldn't do any good.

"I knew when I came in here that if I could change your mind - but couldn't do it quickly - we'd be goners."

"This is why I called you a fool!" she burst out. She was weeping again. "I half expected you to show up here, but not in a goddamn _car_. I know you're skilled at astral projection. And you've kept yourself and your car shielded all this time - I wasn't helping. So you're powerful enough that you could have come in your astral body and stayed just as long. Why in God's name didn't you keep your physical body in a safe place?"

Ben said bluntly, "Think about that, Sofe. Remember where you were emotionally an hour ago. You may have called me a fool. But would you really have listened to me if I _wasn't_ putting my life on the line?"

That brought her up short. She looked at him for a long moment, then said wretchedly, "No."

"It's all right," he told her. He shuddered. "I can't imagine urging you to let yourself be killed, while I had my body stashed in a 'safe place.' If I did such a thing, I'd never be able to live with myself. I came here prepared to die."

He had in fact believed that if he failed to sway her, she wouldn't let him leave alive. Even when she told him he could step in and raise Adam, he'd been sure she'd go back on that promise when she had time to think. She would try to protect Adam, but only through mailed instructions to Iris.

If she'd let Ben live, and he'd rushed to the authorities and demonstrated his own supernatural powers, they wouldn't have dared dismiss his claims about _her_.

But he'd seen no point in doing that initially. It would have precipitated an out-and-out war between Sofie and the military, and she would have killed him before he could thwart her a second time.

Now he gathered her in his arms, wishing he could shield her from the blast as he'd shielded his car from aerial observers. "We're together, Sofe. And we've defeated the evil and the weakness that exist in all of us. Nothing else matters."

"You're right," she agreed, in a voice that was small but steady. "Humans may or may not use this new weapon in war. But the only people to die today will be the two of us."

He found himself wondering about that other possible history, the one in which he'd let the carnies execute him in 1934.

_Would Justin and Sofie have fought till they both fell dead - perhaps at this very moment, in this very spot?_

_The test would have proceeded, as it will now. The outcome would have been exactly the same._

_Except that Sofie would have been damned._

_And that difference makes all the years of struggle and suffering worthwhile._

But thoughts of a conflict between Justin and Sofie reminded him of a question that had been nagging at him.

"Sofe? There's something I don't understand. I know you've always been a good mother. So why did you let Adam see you kill Justin?"

She pulled away from him, and gazed at him in apparent shock. "I didn't, Ben! Adam wasn't in the room."

From somewhere behind Ben, a boy's voice spoke up. "Yes, I was, Mom."

x

x

x

Sofie let out a shriek.

Ben spun around in time to see Adam emerge from behind his car.

"Ben!" Sofie screamed. "Did he stow away in your car?"

That terrible thought had been the first one to flash into Ben's mind as well, even though he knew it was irrational.

"I'm not here in my flesh-and-blood body," the boy said solemnly. "Just a thought-form."

_As good a term as "astral body," _Ben thought distractedly. _Maybe better._

_But this means he really is some kind of Avatar!_

At one and the same time, he was heartbroken at the thought of Adam's being an Avatar - he wouldn't have wished that on anyone - and grateful for this chance to have a few last moments with his son.

Sofie was still wailing, and he hastened to assure her, "He's telling the truth. I phoned Iris from Alamogordo to check on them. She said Adam had been quiet and withdrawn, but he was definitely there with her. _Physically_ there - he'd been eating his meals."

"But that means..." Sofie's voice trailed off, as she drew the same conclusion he had.

"Mr. Hawkins?" Adam said politely.

"Uh - yes, Adam?"

"Is it okay if I call you Dad?"

Ben was struck speechless. Sofie's gasp told him she was as stunned as he. He finally managed to choke out, "Of course! But when - how -?"

"I've seen you in dreams all my life," Adam informed him. "And I've always known you were my father."

Ben belatedly realized that when Adam had told him about Justin's death, he'd never used the words _Dad_ or _my father_. He'd always referred to Justin by the personal pronoun _he_.

"It was just one of the things I never told anyone," Adam was saying. "Like not letting anyone see what I really am."

"Wh-what _are_ you?" Sofie asked in a tremulous voice. But she didn't wait for an answer. "And what did you mean about having been in that room?"

The boy frowned. "I need to explain that. I'm the one who really caused Justin's death.

"I knew you wouldn't kill him in front of me. And I knew _he_ knew that. So I let him see me and you not see me. That way he felt safe in trying to stop you, and you went ahead and killed him."

Ben felt as if he'd been kicked in the gut. Or ripped open with a scythe...again. Sofie whimpered, and he put his arm around her.

_What sort of monster have we created?_

Aloud, he said carefully, "I don't understand, Adam. Why did you want Justin dead? I know he was always good to you."

Adam looked up at him; the boy's eyes appeared to glisten with unshed tears.

"I didn't want Justin dead! I loved Justin. I've never wished anyone dead.

"I had to do what I did, to save the world.

"If you and Justin were both alive, Dad, you would have teamed up to stop Mom from doing what she meant to do today. Used your powers to stop her, without changing anything in her mind or heart. You wouldn't have killed her, because it wouldn't seem necessary. If Justin suggested it - and he probably wouldn't have - you would have talked him out of it. No one would have died today, and you would have thought it was a good outcome.

"But Mom would have kept getting stronger and stronger, more and more evil, till no one could control her. And then the world would have been doomed.

"I couldn't just tell Justin not to help you today, to make you deal with Mom alone. Not when it would almost certainly turn out...like this. He wouldn't have listened to me.

"No one ever listens to kids."

"We're listening now, son," Ben said softly. "And everything's all right. We understand, and we love you." He was weeping, but he'd never felt prouder or more at peace.

"That's right, Adam," Sofie chimed in. "Don't ever have any regrets. _Thank you_ for having had the strength to make that hard decision."

"I think we can speak for Justin, too," Ben told the boy. "He would have been willing to sacrifice his life, if he understood that it was necessary."

Adam nodded. "I know."

"But now..." Ben glanced at his watch. "You have to leave, son. This isn't a good place for you to be, even in your thought-form."

"I need my parents," Adam said, with a hint of stubbornness. Then he continued mournfully, "_All_ the kids in the world need their parents. I wish the grown-ups would stop fighting with each other, and think about what it's doing to the kids."

Ben could only murmur, "Amen."

And then the klaxon sounded.

Ben yelled, "Get out of here, Adam!" He heard Sofie yelling too.

But Adam made a sudden grab for Ben's left hand, and for Sofie's right. "Join hands!" he commanded. "With each other, and with me! _Now!_"

There was no time to argue. Ben would have preferred that the boy not experience the blast, even in his "thought-form." But at least Adam couldn't be hurt physically; he wasn't really there.

Ben was in fact surprised that he could feel Adam's small hand in his. Astral bodies were usually insubstantial. But he remembered that he'd felt Scudder's hand, too - on his neck, on that long-ago night when he'd tried to kill himself in a graveyard. _In a place called Loving._

Sofie's left hand slipped into his right; he saw that she'd joined hands with Adam as well.

The circle was complete.

_A __**family**_, Ben realized, amazed to find himself part of such a thing. _The three of us finally together, united, if only for one fleeting moment._

And then they were swallowed up by the light.


	3. Chapter 3

The woman's cry was muffled before it became a scream.

But Ben heard it, and wondered sleepily, _What's goin' on? That sounded like a woman, but there ain't no women around here._

Then he remembered the last words he'd heard. A medic had stuck a needle in him, and when he cussed, the medic had said, "Just relax. You're gonna be okay. When you wake up you should be back in the States. Wish I could go with you."

_Am I back in the States? Really?_

He tried to open his eyes. The lids felt as heavy as lead, but he finally succeeded.

At first, all he saw was a blur. But as his vision cleared, he discovered he was - as he'd expected - in a hospital bed. Standing beside the bed, looking down at him, was a woman in what had to be a nurse's uniform.

Except that she wasn't merely "looking." She was staring at him, wide-eyed, with her hands clamped over her mouth.

_This can't be. I'm dreamin', or delirious - or worse._

But the nurse lowered her hands, and choked out, "Ben? Ben Scudder? It really is you!"

He gasped. "Sofie? Sofie Bojakshiya?"

"Oh my God. You remember that _name_, after ten years?"

Under the circumstances, he was relieved that he had remembered what Sofie herself evidently thought was a difficult name. But he wasn't about to let her know there'd been any doubt. " 'Course I remember your name!"

To his utter bewilderment, he heard a scattering of applause. A few men's voices let out yells, the loudest among them being "Woo-hoo!"

A man on crutches hobbled into his range of vision. He took a gander at Ben, then said cheerfully, "So _you're_ the long-lost love pretty Sofie's been pinin' for? Guess there ain't no accountin' for taste!"

By now Sofie was crimson. "You scoot, Joe!"

Laughing, Joe scooted. To the best of his ability.

As the ward gradually quieted down, Sofie said in a near-whisper, "I'm sorry about that, Ben. I suppose you're married by now."

"I ain't married. Sofe, I searched all over the Midwest for you! For years! I put ads in papers whenever I could scrape up the cash. I didn't give up till the War broke out."

"Really?" She looked stunned, and possibly ashamed. "My family and I searched for you too, for a while. But I wasn't in the Midwest, Ben. I was here in California." Before he could follow up on that, she said, "Maybe I shouldn't be encouraging you to talk, getting you tired. How badly are you hurt?"

She seemed to be moving away from him, going to get his chart from the foot of the bed. He didn't want her to go even that far, so he spoke up quickly. "Don't worry, I ain't gonna die." No need to tell her how close he'd come. "The Japs strafed our base in the Islands. I got a bad concussion - maybe not my first - an' got cut up some by shrapnel." Catching her quizzical look at his unmarked face, he explained, "Mostly my arms, chest, an' belly. But there was a gash in my thigh that severed a major blood vessel. That, an' the concussion, were the serious stuff."

"Are you in pain?" she asked anxiously.

"No. Not with you here." His head did ache. As did just about every other part of him. But he wasn't about to admit it.

And the effort of talking _was_ tiring him. Nevertheless, he was determined not to let Sofie out of his sight till they'd discussed what happened ten years ago.

He had to learn something else first. "Where exactly are we, Sofe? I know it's a military hospital, an' you said California. But where 'bouts in California?"

"San Diego," she told him.

Just for a second, the name of the city troubled him. He didn't know why.

_Forget it._ "Okay. That's way south o' my folks' place. Do my parents know I'm here?"

Sofie nodded. "Yes, they must have been told by now."

He grinned. "Then we'd better talk fast, 'cause if I know my pa, he'll set some kind o' speed record gettin' here. I have very devoted parents."

Sofie's grin matched his. "Me too."

He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Sofe, I'm sorry 'bout what happened that night in the truck. Not sorry we did it, but sorry it was in such a damn public place. All my fault, an' I've never forgiven myself."

Once again, she looked stunned. She dropped into a chair so she could be closer to him, leaning over the bed. In a whisper even lower than his, she protested, "Ben, it was _my_ fault! I acted like a child. And where else could we have made love? I slept in a tent with a half-dozen other women, and you had to sleep on the ground!"

He couldn't suppress an amused grunt. "Yeah," he acknowledged, "there was that.

"So you left for the reason Jonesy an' me thought? 'Cause he'd caught us makin' love durin' the storm, an' you were afraid he'd spread it through the carnival?"

"Yes. I was mortified. But like I said, I know now that I was acting like a child. I shouldn't have made you suffer for my embarrassment."

"The saddest part of it," he told her, "is that Jonesy wouldn't o' spread the story! He felt awful about it. He swore to me that he wouldn't o' told a soul, an' I believed him. Neither of us told anyone, even Samson, why you'd left.

"How did you do it, anyway? I figured you'd hiked to the nearest town, then took a train somewhere. But I went to the station, an' no one remembered you from my description."

She grimaced. "I thought someone might come after me. And at the time, I didn't want to be found. So I did hike to the nearest town, but then I took a bus to another town, and picked up the train there.

"And, Ben, I have to explain more about why making love was such a big deal for me. I never told anyone this, but I'm, uh...a minister's daughter."

Ben couldn't stop himself from blurting out, "Holy shit."

"Yes. I'd been raised to believe having sex out of wedlock was sinful. And that if a girl did such a thing, the man wouldn't respect her in the morning. You didn't seduce me - I wanted it as much as you did. But I would have felt guilty and awkward and embarrassed even if Jonesy hadn't seen us. Thinking the whole carnival would be making fun of me was just the last straw."

"I woulda respected you even more in the mornin'," he assured her. "It's strange, though. I guess there ain't no reason why a Gypsy shouldn't be a minister, but I've never thought o' such a thing."

"A Gypsy?" Her cheeks reddened again. "Damn it, I wasn't honest with you about that, either. My father isn't a Gypsy, and my real name is Crowe - Ben, what's wrong?"

"Uh, nothin'. But if you ain't a Gypsy - well, shit."

She looked puzzled. _Can't blame her._

_Is more than one thing "wrong"? Is there somethin' about the name Crowe?_

_No, I'm imaginin' things._

Before he could explain his initial reaction, she said, "I do have Gypsy blood, on my mother's side. I'm not sure how much.

"I always loved my parents and knew they loved me, but I felt sort of - stifled - being a minister's daughter. Afraid that if I wasn't perfect all the time, it would reflect badly on Papa. And I had this wanderlust, and got the romantic notion that it might have something to do with my Gypsy blood.

"I was old enough that I had a right to leave home, but I was afraid Papa would be able to talk me out of it. He can convince darned near anyone of anything! So I more or less ran away, and took one of the Gypsy names I'd seen in some old family papers in the attic."

"Jeez. An' you wound up a seamstress with Hyde an' Teller."

"Yes." She made another face. "A seamstress - except when they needed an extra _laundress_."

"An' later, I had no clue where to look for you," he said regretfully. "If you'd had some kind o' specialty act, I'd o' guessed you joined another carnival. But it seemed you coulda been anywhere, doin' anythin'."

She sighed. "And it was the same in reverse, when I started looking for you. Hyde and Teller had folded by then. And I knew you'd just signed on as a roustie on impulse, after your parents lost their farm and headed west."

"Right. Pa knew I'd never had much interest in farmin', beyond fussin' over the equipment. He encouraged me to try somethin' else. But Hyde an' Teller was my only stint with a carnival."

"Ben?" Sofie sounded hesitant. "Forgive me, but I have to ask. Why did it seem to matter to you about my being a Gypsy? As if you especially wanted me to be one?"

"Well...it wasn't that I _wanted_ it, exactly. An' I feel ashamed, on account o' the Jews."

"Jews?" Now she was totally lost.

"Remember when the War broke out in Europe, back in '39? We heard stories about the awful things the Nazis were doin' on the Continent. The Jews were gettin' the worst of it, an' I guess I shoulda been riled about that. But I'd never actually known any Jews.

"I did know _you_. An' when I heard they were persecutin' Gypsies as well as Jews, I couldn't stop thinkin' about how it coulda been you an' your family, if your folks hadn't come to America.

"So that's why I joined the RAF."

Sofie let out a squeal that set the ward audibly buzzing again. "You did _what?_"

"Joined the RAF," he repeated earnestly, "to fight Hitler.

"Oh, I ain't no glamorous flyboy. Just a mechanic. That's what I've always been best at, tinkerin' with machines.

"But I was with the RAF till the U.S. entered the War. Then they gave me a discharge so I could hook up with our own guys. An' I wound up in the Pacific, not fightin' Hitler at all - but no one could fret over that, considerin' Pearl Harbor."

Tears had begun streaming down Sofie's cheeks. "You actually joined the RAF, before the U.S. was at war, because of _me?_"

"Yeah, sure I did." He decided he should make it a little clearer. "I guess I never said this back in '35, Sofe. But maybe it ain't too late to say it now. I love you."

And suddenly, she was covering his face with kisses.

It took him a minute or so to get the point across that his lips were part of his face, and he wanted _very_ much to kiss her back.

When she finally surfaced for air, she gasped out, "Ben - I've been forgetting that you can't possibly have heard the latest war news."

"What? Good or bad?"

"Good," she assured him. "Not a rumor this time - there was definite confirmation an hour ago.

"Hitler is dead."

x

x

x

An exhausted Ben fell asleep with Sofie's hand clasped in his. When he woke again, Hack and Flora Scudder had joined her at his bedside.

If there was a spot on Ben's face or neck that Sofie had missed with her kisses, Flora found it. But it was Hack who embarrassed himself by weeping. He'd always been especially close to his son, and seemed to sense that he'd almost lost him, despite Ben's attempt to make light of his wounds.

Ben's parents were delighted to meet Sofie, and vice versa.

None of that surprised him. What did surprise him was that the next time he woke, the group at his bedside had grown to include the Reverend Justin Crowe and his wife Polly. Ben had never been personally acquainted with a minister. He expected a stern, holier-than-thou attitude, but found instead that Justin was as pleasant a man as he'd ever met.

In an ironic twist, it turned out that when Hack and Flora arrived in California with other displaced Okies, they'd attended some services at Justin's Dignity Ministry, and been impressed with the work he was doing. But because they weren't actually Methodists, they'd drifted away without giving the pastor their name - at the very time he was trying to help his daughter find Ben.

The Scudders now operated a thriving vineyard, not all that far from the Crowes' home in Mintern. By the time Ben drifted off to sleep again, he was sure the two older couples would become fast friends.

x

x

x

Two weeks later Ben was well enough to be setting out for a walk in the hospital corridor, with the aid of a walker - and of Sofie, who spent so much time with him that he knew she must be neglecting other patients.

Once they were past the busy nurses' station, she said seriously, "There's something I have to discuss with you, Ben. I don't know how you'll feel about it, and I didn't want to hit you with it till you'd gotten some of your strength back. But I don't think I should wait any longer."

He cast a sidelong glance at her. "Jeez. Are you promised to someone else, Sofe? I just assumed, like all I needed to do was say 'I love you' an' it'd be like we were never apart."

"Good God, no!" She squeezed his arm. "Of course I'm not promised to anyone else. You're the only man I've ever loved."

He heaved a sigh of relief. "Well, if it ain't that...there's somethin' I've been wantin' to discuss too, an' I feel like I gotta get it off my chest. So could I please go first?"

"Of course."

"Okay." He took a deep breath. "To begin with, here's the good stuff. The docs say my wounds are healin' faster than expected. I won't even have a limp. An' everyone believes the War is windin' down, should be over soon. Plus, I'm a skilled aircraft mechanic, an' I should be able to earn a good salary in peacetime."

Sofie nodded. "I know all that," she said in a taut voice. "What's the not-so-good stuff?"

"There may still be somethin' wrong with me," he told her. Reluctantly. "I asked the docs to keep it from you an' not scare you, till I could explain it myself.

"I lost an awful lot o' blood from that thigh wound, Sofe. Damn near bled to death. The medics in the Islands thought it was some kind o' miracle that I pulled through.

"An' they didn't believe anyone could survive a blood loss that massive without brain damage. Not to mention the concussion, that maybe wasn't my first.

"I don't have any o' the obvious signs o' brain damage. I recognize people I should recognize, remember everythin' I should remember. I can still read an' write an' all that.

"But I've been havin' terrible dreams, weird ones that don't seem to have nothin' to do with the War. An' even when I'm awake, I get these flashes o' things that seem like memories, only they ain't real memories. They _can't_ be."

They'd stopped walking, and an anxious Sofie was gazing up into his eyes. "Like what, Ben?"

"Like...my parents bein' dead. Not some time in the future, in the _past_. An' part of a Ferris wheel collapsin', when I never saw such a thing durin' the year I was with Hyde an' Teller. Stuff like that.

"I'm only tellin' you this 'cause it's gotta be some kind o' brain damage - the docs think so too - an' I want to be honest with you. But they don't think I'm a danger to myself or anyone else, or that I'll be too messed up to hold a job." He felt better already, just having told her. "So the question is, are you still willin' to take a chance on lovin' me?"

Sofie wrapped her arms around him. "That isn't a question, Ben. I don't see it as taking a chance. I can't _not_ love you! I'm with you for as long as you want me - for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, whatever."

"Then..." He finally relaxed enough to smile. "Will you marry me?"

"Yes, yes, yes!"

Their kiss in the hospital corridor brought another round of applause from the dozen or so patients and staffers close enough to see it.

When she'd disentangled herself, Sofie said, "Now can I tell you what was on _my_ mind?"

"Sure." Ben wiped the grin off his face. "I'm sorry. Go ahead."

"Like I said, I don't know how you'll feel about it. But...we already have a nine-year-old son."

Ben's whoop of delight startled a nearby nurse's aide into dropping a meal tray.

Given the quality of hospital food, that wasn't any great loss.

x

x

x

Ben's health continued to improve, and early in June he was granted a five-day furlough from the hospital. He meant to visit Hack and Flora, but spend most of the week with Sofie and his future in-laws in Mintern - getting to know his son, who'd been staying with his grandparents while Sofie worked in San Diego. He'd already spoken to the boy by phone. But he'd insisted that the Crowes not bring young Adam to a place as depressing as the hospital.

Sofie did the driving through the lush California farmland; all Ben had to do was sit back and relax. After the grim reality of the Islands, and his grimmer imaginings about Europe and Japan, the beauty of his surroundings moved him to tears.

"You know," he confided, "it was gettin' harder an' harder for me to do my job. I don't think I ever coulda killed enemy soldiers. Bein' a mechanic, I didn't have to. But it got to botherin' me that I was keepin' our planes in good repair so the pilots could bomb cities - kill civilians, families with kids. That ain't right in my book."

"I don't believe in it either," Sofie told him. "I heard a song on the radio, with lyrics gloating about its being 'mighty smoky over Tokyo.' It made me sick." She hesitated, then asked, "Do you think they'll send you back?"

"I don't know," he said somberly. "If they order me back I'll do my duty, won't try claimin' I ain't well enough if I think I really am. But I keep prayin' that either the War will end, or they'll quit bombin' cities. I ain't never prayed so hard for anythin' in my life."

"Hmm. Maybe you'd better not let Papa know you've taken up praying. He'd love to have another minister in the family!"

That got a laugh out of him - as he knew Sofie had intended. But then he said, "Seriously, your father seems like a wonderful man."

_So why do I keep dreamin' that he's chasin' me through a cornfield, tryin' to kill me?_

_'Cause I'm brain-damaged, that's why._

_A little bit brain-damaged. I'm not a danger to anyone, I'm not!_

"He is wonderful," Sofie agreed. "I never expected him to be so understanding about my turning up pregnant. He was the one suggested we search for you - not to demand anything, but because he thought you'd want to know you were going to have a child. And if he and Mama weren't so supportive, I might have had to give Adam up for adoption."

Ben gulped. That possibility had never occurred to him.

After a long pause, he murmured, "I think I'll say a few more prayers right now.

"Prayers of gratitude."

_And prayers to be rid o' the damn dreams._

The drive to Mintern went more quickly than he'd expected. As they pulled up in front of the Crowes' modest house, Sofie sounded the horn three times - obviously a prearranged signal.

Her beaming parents came to the door.

But as Ben got out of the car, they stepped aside to let him see...a perfect, nine-year-old miniature of himself.

Father and son looked at each other, dumbfounded.

Then they burst into gales of laughter, and Adam ran into Ben's arms.

"Now I _know_ you're my father!"

" 'Course I am! Why've you been hidin' from poor old Dad all these years, you little rascal?"

x

x

x

When Ben could be torn away from his son, he was introduced to two other family members who'd driven up from Los Angeles to meet him. Sofie's beloved Aunt Iris was Justin's sister; Ben couldn't guess which sibling was the elder. She proudly explained that her husband Tommy Dolan was a roving reporter for radio station KZAK. Ben didn't understand exactly what a "roving reporter" did; but it sounded distinguished, so he acted suitably impressed.

Tommy said wistfully, "There's terrific human interest in this story of reunited lovers. I could have made it bigger than any of the romances of Hollywood stars." Ben must have looked horrified, because he laughed and went on to say, "Don't worry, Iris won't let me use it. She made me see that, um" - he lowered his voice - "it couldn't be told without embarrassing Adam, even if the adults were okay with it." With an affectionate look at his wife, he added, "Iris has always been able to wrap me around her little finger."

That drew chuckles from the others, and Justin let Ben in on the joke. "When Polly and Iris and I founded the Dignity Ministry back in '34, we ran into a lot of opposition. There were bigots in my original congregation, and in local politics.

"Iris heard Tommy on the radio. And she realized that if he could be gotten to support our cause, he could give us good statewide publicity that would shame our opponents into backing down.

"So she wrote to him. It worked out the way she hoped - and as a bonus, Iris and Tommy fell in love."

Iris said primly, "I'm sure it was all part of God's plan." But after a beat, she added, "Though I _had_ seen a picture of Tommy before I wrote to him..."

Amid more chuckles, Justin said, "Thinking of God, our Bishop is going to stop by for dinner, Ben. He's eager to meet you."

Ben almost choked. "Your Bishop? Do Methodist bishops always scope out the guys ministers' daughters are gonna marry?"

"No, no!" The whole family began talking at once. But Ben soon got the point: that the Reverend, now Bishop, Norman Balthus - along with his late wife Rose - had raised the orphaned Justin and Iris, and he was like a grandfather to Sofie. "Norman's eighty now," Justin said proudly, "and he's been Bishop for ten years, but there's nary a sign of his slowing down. He has as much energy as I do."

_Balthus_, Ben thought uneasily. _That's gotta be an unusual name, but I feel like I've heard it before._

_I have visited Ma an' Pa over the years, an' they only live a few miles from here. Maybe this Bishop's name was in the news._

_Damn. I can't keep frettin' over whether every stray thought in my head is somethin' unnatural!_

x

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x

Bishop Balthus arrived, as promised, later that afternoon. The white-haired prelate was driving his own car - a model that struck Ben as a flashy choice for a man his age. He strode up the few front steps with an agility that Ben envied.

The Bishop proved to be down-to-earth and extremely likable. He was eager to hear any war stories Ben wanted to share, but sensitive enough that he didn't pry. Nor did his questions touch on Ben and Sofie's sex life. (The young couple had in fact decided to postpone sex until after they were married, in deference to Sofie's family.)

All went smoothly until dinner.

That too began well. Ben was delighted when Adam asked to sit between him and Sofie. Bishop Balthus was seated on Ben's other side.

But in the course of an animated dinner-table conversation, Balthus gave Ben a good-natured pat on the shoulder. And that physical contact sent Ben's mind spinning into a dark place.

xxx

_Screaming people ran to and fro, trying to escape from an enclosure that Ben somehow knew was a tent._

_Reverend Balthus rose from a wheelchair and confronted a rampaging Justin. Balthus proclaimed, "The power of Christ compels you -" For all the world, Ben thought, as if he was attempting some kind of __**exorcism**__._

_Justin's response was even more bizarre. He snarled, "Behold, the Holy Evil is come!" Ben saw the scythe in Justin's hand, heard the horrific ripping sound as he disemboweled Balthus with one cruel stroke..._

xxx

"No!" Ben leapt to his feet, almost overturning his chair.

As he stood there, shaking like a leaf, he gradually realized that he was in a perfectly normal dining room, disrupting what had been a perfectly normal dinner. Everyone was staring at him.

A visibly distressed Bishop Balthus leaned away, so as not to risk touching him again. But Adam clutched at his father's hand, asking anxiously, "Dad? What's the matter?"

Sofie got up, hurried to Ben and put her arms around him. "It's okay, Ben," she said lovingly. "We're family."

"I-I'm sorry," he mumbled, letting Sofie ease him back down onto his chair. He couldn't look at anyone, but he kept talking. "I have, uh, war flashbacks," he improvised. " 'Cause o' the head injury, I reckon. I don't know what sets it off. I'm sorry, Bishop! It didn't have nothin' to do with you touchin' me -"

"That's all right, son," the Bishop said kindly. "Don't give it another thought."

Ben finally summoned up the nerve to look at _his_ actual son. When he saw the boy's white face and scared eyes, he wanted to cry. But he pulled himself together and said, "Don't you worry, Adam. I just have some medical problems that ain't cleared up yet, but they will." _I hope_.

Adam squared his small shoulders and said, "Sure, Dad. I know that."

As everyone settled down again, Sofie planted a kiss on Adam's head.

x

x

x

The incident was seemingly forgotten...by everyone but Ben.

But Bishop Balthus paid the family another visit two days later. After dinner that night, he made a casual suggestion to Ben. "It's a beautiful evening. How about you and me taking a little walk? I'd like to get to know you better. And there's a park a block away, where we could sit on a bench and have ourselves a chat."

_Ain't no polite way I can refuse_, Ben realized.

And then he realized something else. He didn't want to refuse.

When they were alone on that park bench, the Bishop said gently, "I can see that you're troubled, Ben. If you don't want to talk about it, I'll understand. I won't press you.

"But while I think of Sofie as my granddaughter, I'm not really a member of the family. It might help you to confide in someone - a clergyman, maybe, who isn't quite as close to the situation as Justin."

Ben nodded. "You're right, Bishop. I've been feelin' like I'd go to pieces if I couldn't open up about it. Thanks for bein' willin' to listen.

"I know I got brain damage. The problem is, I'm afraid I may be so far gone that I could become a burden to Sofie, or even hurt someone.

"I lied the other night, about war flashbacks. None o' the things I see relate to the War. That's why they're so scary."

He explained what he'd told Sofie in the hospital. "I ain't been dishonest with her," he said earnestly. "My parents an' hers know some of it, too. But I ain't been able to bring myself to tell any o' them how insane the details are.

"For instance, I told Sofie that I've had bad dreams an' false memories about my parents already havin' died. Just that.

"Here's the details. My parents really left Oklahoma, together, before conditions got bad. But in these 'memories' I keep havin', Ma an' me were alone there durin' the worst o' the Dust Bowl. Ma was dyin' from dust pneumonia. An' she'd turned against me, for some reason - wouldn't let me help her, or even touch her.

"As for Pa, I've 'remembered' lookin' down into a well or trough or somethin', where instead o' seein' my reflection in the water, I saw his severed head! With long gray hair, that he ain't got in real life, but it was definitely Pa. With his mouth open in a scream.

"There's been stuff about part of a carnival's Ferris wheel collapsin', with deaths an' injuries. I worked for a carnival years ago, but I never saw nothin' like that.

"An' there's a carny I worked with. I've had 'memories' o' him havin' been tarred an' feathered an' left to die in a desert. I've seen the buzzards comin' in, gettin' ready to eat his remains. Why would anyone imagine sick crap like that? I know it didn't really happen - the guy's alive an' well, 'cept for a bum knee. He's managin' a baseball team in Mexico.

"But this may be the worst of all. I've had dreams an' 'memories' - hell, maybe I should call them _delusions - _where _Justin_ was some kind o' demonic figure."

Balthus had been listening in silence. But now he burst out, "Justin? A demon?"

"Yeah. You see how crazy it is? He was chasin' me through a cornfield, tryin' to kill me. It seemed I _did_ kill _him_, drove a dagger into his chest. But for some reason, he didn't stay dead.

"An' then, what happened at dinner the other night -" Ben hesitated, but was so wound-up that he couldn't stop. He poured out the whole fantastic story of what he'd "remembered" Justin doing to Balthus.

"I wouldn't o' told you that," he concluded lamely, "about you bein' murdered, if there was any chance it could be a true vision o' your future. But it's impossible -"

"Yes, of course it is." The Bishop had been taken aback by the sheer horror of the tale, but his voice was steady now. He seemed lost in thought for a minute. Then he asked, "Ben - how do you feel about the War? Especially the turn it's taken, our forces bombing cities and killing civilians?"

Without hesitation, Ben said, "I hate that. I told Sofie I've been prayin' it would stop."

"I'm not a psychiatrist," Balthus said slowly, "just a humble servant of God. Maybe I shouldn't presume to 'diagnose' you. But I've counseled a good many people. And I think it's possible there's something the military doctors aren't seeing, just because they are military, and don't question the War themselves.

"I don't think you're brain-damaged, Ben. I think this is all psychological, and it _is_ about the War.

"The main thing that's troubling you is the harm being done to civilians, and your feeling powerless to do anything about it. The way that's played out in your mind is that you've imagined bad things - apparently not war-related - happening to American civilians, people you know. Your parents, that carny.

"And the collapsing Ferris wheel could be a symbol of bomb damage done to cities. You've never really seen a bombed city, so your mind substituted something you could at least visualize."

Ben pondered that. He wanted to believe it. "But...what about Justin? An' you?"

"I'm getting to that. At some point your mind may have created a personification of War itself. A demonic Lord of War. You sensed that you couldn't vanquish this War-god permanently, and you didn't believe religion could defeat him either."

"But why a good man like Justin?" Ben persisted. "Why not Hitler?"

"From what you've told me, that figure didn't appear in your dreams or false memories until Hitler was dead. Defeated and dead - an abject failure.

"You'd only met Justin a day or so before the dreams about him began. This new acquaintance was fresh in your mind. But you barely knew him as a person. And he happens to be tall, strong, and powerfully built. I think your mind picked the image of Justin to represent the War-god. It had nothing to do with the character of the man."

"I reckon that could be," Ben said uncertainly. "An' if it is..." He didn't dare put his thought into words.

Balthus did. "If the whole thing is a psychological reference to the War, Ben, understanding it should be the key to putting it behind you."

x

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x

But in mid-July, on the eve of his wedding, Ben was battling severe depression. "Understanding" his problem hadn't helped. Rather than disappoint Bishop Balthus, he'd fibbed and told him it had. He'd reverted to the brain damage theory, and he was once again without a confidant whom he felt he could burden with the full extent of his misery.

Physically, he'd recovered completely. But without having asked for it, without explanation, he'd been granted a medical discharge - not just from the hospital, from the U.S. Armed Forces.

A medical discharge, for a physically healthy man...with no offer of followup psychiatric care.

_Thanks, Uncle Sam._

He believed the shrinks found his mental problem so disturbing that they simply wanted to be rid of him.

Hack, on the other hand, had told him the discharge was probably a snafu, a bureaucratic mix-up. But he'd urged him not to question it.

And Ben had decided he wouldn't. _However nervous I am 'bout the future, it could be the discharge is God's way of answerin' my prayers. Lettin' the War be over for me, if not for everyone._

If he'd been ordered back to the front, he and Sofie would have married in haste. As it was, they'd allowed themselves a little more planning time, and picked July 16 as their wedding date.

The ceremony itself would be simple. Bishop Balthus was set to perform it, with Justin playing the traditional role of father of the bride. Jonesy had driven up from Mexico to be Ben's best man.

Sofie had been delighted when she learned that Ben and Jonesy were still friends, and Jonesy was married to the former Libby Dreifuss. She wanted Iris to be her matron of honor, but she insisted on having both Libby and her sister Dora Mae as bridesmaids.

Even though Jonesy's work didn't pay much, Libby had retired from her "career" as a stripper and prostitute. And Dora Mae, the only one of the Dreifusses who'd possessed real dancing talent, was now a respectable teacher of dance. Ben and Sofie had decided not to test the Crowes' broadmindedness by telling them about the sisters' past.

But Jonesy's and the women's exuberance was only making Ben feel worse. He had serious doubts as to whether he should go through with the wedding. _I'm gonna be like this - or worse - all my life. What if I slip back an' forth between real an' false memories so much that I forget which is which?_

_Hell, what if I snap completely an' kill my father-in-law?_

But he kept going ahead with the preparations. He knew that if he backed out, he'd break Sofie's heart...and Adam's.

Those preparations didn't include a bachelor party. Ben had nixed it, not telling anyone his plans for his last night as a single man.

He spent all of it on his knees in Justin's church. Praying for healing, for guidance, for _something_.

But he was plagued throughout the night by warring sets of memories. And God was silent.

x

x

x

He'd been staying with his parents. So he drove back to their place in the morning, to shower and change for the wedding.

He wasn't going to wear a necktie, let alone a tuxedo. He'd have his best shirt tucked neatly into his best pants; that would have to do.

_I've had it with tuxedos_, he thought as he was dressing. _Vowed I'd never wear another after Samson made me give them fake healin' performances -_

_**No!**__ Nothin' like that ever happened!_

He moaned. _God help me, I gotta keep this crap straight._

x

x

x

Two hours later he was back in the church - nervously standing beside his best man, at the head of the aisle, as he watched the pews fill up. He hadn't realized this many people would attend the wedding; Justin was a popular minister.

"You got the ring?" he whispered to Jonesy.

Jonesy snickered. "I had it five minutes ago, an' I still do. Calm down."

Ben tried to steady himself, focusing on his smiling parents in their front-row seats.

_I'm doin' the right thing. We love each other. It's gonna be okay._

The mother of the bride was ushered to her seat opposite his parents.

Ben shifted anxiously from one foot to the other.

Jonesy began whispering to him, offering an old married man's good-humored advice about the wedding night. Trying to crack him up.

He made the mistake of looking at Bishop Balthus. The Bishop was a shrewd man. He'd noticed Ben's discomfort...and the concern in his eyes made it worse.

Jonesy murmured a ribald joke.

Ben snorted. Without thinking, he shot back, "Ouch! Maybe I shoulda let you die in the desert."

"Huh? What desert?"

And suddenly, Ben was remembering.

_The tar an' feathers. The buzzards. I was deliberately waitin' for enough o' them buzzards to close in, so I could...so I could..._

In all his previous memories of that strange other reality, he'd been a passive observer, a pawn of others, or a failure. His dying mother had refused his help. A dwarf carny boss had been able to force him to take part in a scam. He'd killed a man who didn't stay dead.

This was different.

_I was waitin' for the buzzards to close in so I could use their life-force to heal Jonesy. __**I performed a miracle!**_

And all at once, everything fell into place. He knew who he was.

_Oh my God._

_I'm not brain-damaged._

_I never served in the RAF, never was wounded fighting the Japanese in the Pacific._

_My parents, Justin, Apollonia, Norman Balthus, Dora Mae Dreifuss...all of them were dead._

_I'd healed Jonesy's knee along with his burns, and he'd finished his career in baseball as the ace of the Yankees' pitching staff. But Libby always felt like a misfit in that life; they're happier now._

_Sofie and I were about to die._

_**And Adam was a little boy with incredible powers. Who needed his parents.**_

Ben didn't doubt that he was living in the real world. But reality had been altered - and with it, the memories of untold thousands of people. _How many believe Norman Balthus has been Bishop of this diocese for the last ten years? How many have __**forgotten**__ Jonesy's return to the majors?_

Jonesy repeated, "What desert?"

"Uh...bad joke. Forget it."

He felt his eyes filling with tears. _How can I cope with this? Knowing the truth doesn't make it any easier, not when I'm the only one who knows._

_I may still look like the Ben Hawkins - no, Ben Scudder - of this reality. But all of a sudden, I feel decades older._

_I'm a better-educated man. My natural speech patterns are different. What can I do about that? Try to fake it, play the role of Ben Scudder - live a lie, with everyone?_

_That should be the least of my worries. I've lost my Avataric powers! I never wanted those powers, still don't. But without them, how can I protect the world? I saved San Diego, but The Bomb is still out there!_

And then, from somewhere in the Cosmos, he received an answer.

_**Let it go, Ben.**_

_**Humans have acquired the power to destroy their own species - or choose not to destroy it - without any prompting from Avatars. That's as it should be.**_

_**Avatars could have responded by vengefully driving mankind over the brink. The Usher of Destruction and the Omega, acting together, undoubtedly could have wiped out the human race. The Omega might have been strong enough to do it alone. But Justin found his way out of the darkness, and you broke through Sofie's barriers and healed her spirit in the nick of time.**_

_**You and she were prepared to sacrifice your lives to spare others. Your son was a never-prophesied Avataric wild card; but only the choice you and Sofie made in the desert enabled him to make his family whole and well, free of the burden they'd borne for so many years.**_

_**And no, that burden hasn't been passed to another family. Avatars are no more.**_

_**So let it go, Ben. It's your choice, but you deserve the peace of mind you'll have if you let it go. Accept the gift you've been given. Claim the woman you love and the child born of that love.**_

_**Let the old memories slip away.**_

x

x

x

And slip away they did, once and for all, as the organist began playing "Here Comes the Bride."

Ben Scudder blinked to clear his vision, wondering why he'd been such a bundle of nerves.

Dora Mae, Libby, and Iris paced up the aisle, all of them trying to appear dignified, but unable to conceal girlish grins.

And then came Sofie - escorted by _both_ her father and her son. They were beaming; Adam seemed ready to burst with pride.

Sofie, thirty-two and a mother, had refused to wear a gown or veil. She'd chosen a simple, short-sleeved white dress. But she looked ten years younger than her age, and Ben saw her as the most beautiful bride imaginable.

He was glad, for her sake, that he also looked young.

As Sofie took her place beside him, she gazed up at him and murmured, "Attraction, passion, trials conquered..." Then she frowned. "I don't know why I said that."

"Well, it fits," he told her.

He couldn't take his eyes off her, couldn't keep his arms from moving to encircle her waist. He knew he wasn't supposed to kiss the bride till after the wedding. But he'd endured years of missing her, of yearning for her. And now she was straining up toward him, her lips so tantalizingly close...

Bishop Balthus gave a soft chuckle. "Go ahead," he whispered.

And so they kissed, a deep, life-affirming kiss...both blissfully unaware that at that moment, a false sun was exploding over Trinity, and the world would never be the same.

x

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The End

x

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x

_**Author's Afterword:**_ For the benefit of readers (have any come this far?) familiar only with the show itself, I'll explain what elements of this fic were suggested by plans series creator Daniel Knauf shared with fans, or by other "inside" knowledge.

Season 3 would have picked up the story in 1939. Justin and Sofie would have been married - he, still unaware she's his daughter - and there would be a 3-year-old boy who'd be publicly identified as Justin's son. ("But whose son is he?") Most fans believe the child was meant to be Sofie's son by Ben. But we've been given no clue as to whether Justin knows the truth about the boy, or believes him to be his. Similarly, we haven't been told whether the marriage is a legal fiction meant to deceive the world about the paternity of the child, or a real, consummated union (incestuous, without Justin's knowledge). Nor do we know whether the child is an Avatar.

Wounds made by an anointed blade will never completely heal. So both Justin and Ben will have serious, continuing medical problems. And the blade of Ben's dagger will still be imbedded in Justin's chest. Mr. Knauf has gone so far as to say that in Season 3, the weakened Justin would be a "hollow figurehead" at the head of his movement, with Sofie and Iris vying to wield the real power.

Justin has "warred against" his Dark nature in the past, and will do so again. His yielding to it at the climax of Season 2 was a temporary thing. Mr. Knauf has even said Justin may be the "most heroic" character. But it's unclear what his final role was meant to be.

We've been told that both Ben and Justin were mere "adolescents" as Avatars in the first two seasons, and we would later have seen Avatars wield much more spectacular powers (despite the men's medical problems).

Whatever it may be taken to mean, Mr. Knauf has told fans Ben and Sofie love each other "more than life itself."

Viewers have already seen what was meant to be the final frame of the 6-season series: the glimpse Sofie and Ben had in a Tarot reading of the two of them kissing, with the Trinity test blast of July 16, 1945 in the background. Some fans believe they're letting themselves be killed by the blast; others, including me, think one scene is being superimposed on the other for symbolic reasons.

It is canon that even an Avatar loyal to the Dark cause would have opposed the development of the atom bomb, because humans' making that breakthrough effectively put the Avatars out of a job.

It's also canon that Ben possesses the power to heal other individuals' spirits - which is said to be a more valuable power than mere physical healing, and not to require drawing life-force from anywhere (because it depends on love, which is limitless). This is said to be very important. Knowing that it was meant to be crucial, I'm speculating that Ben ultimately saves humanity by healing Sofie's spirit.

And it's also canon that Jonesy survives being shot at the end of Season 2. No miracle required - the wound simply wasn't fatal. At the beginning of Season 3 he would have been back in the majors, pitching for the Yankees...and still married to Libby.

We learned from a draft script for "Los Moscos" (which its purchaser was good enough to share with the fandom) that the "1945" vision Belyakov gave Ben was of a reality in which Ben had let the carnies execute him. In the longer version in the script, the vision begins with a "carny justice" sequence in which Ben horrifies everyone by picking the number 6 - and he's then killed by Samson's first shot, showing that he would have died no matter what number he picked.

I gave Ben an aptitude for mechanics because in the series' first pilot, Colossus has broken down, the carnies are stumped, and Ben demonstrates his worth by coming up with an idea that gets it to work.

And I described Dora Mae as the only one of the Dreifuss women with genuine dancing talent because in real life, Amanda Aday was the only one of the three actresses who was a trained dancer. She had to "unlearn" what she knew, because their dancing wasn't supposed to be good!


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